The Deodorant Problem
by NokomisKrys
Summary: John tries new deodorants and Sherlock is inexplicably disturbed by them.


**Summary: **John tries new deodorants and Sherlock is inexplicably disturbed by them.

Sherlock was disturbed. Not by the case he was working on - that was simple enough; the victim's third and final lover had killed her and simple reverse psychology would pull a confession out of him, Lestrade had to be informed - but he was disturbed by John Watson.

John, who up till now had been a source of comforting familiarity, John who always stood out because he blended into Sherlock's life, John who Sherlock could always count on to never distract him while he was thinking... this John was the source of Sherlock's disturbance.

It all began yesterday morning. After three hours of playing the violin in front of his case files (well, wall of murder and mystery more like) John had finally woken up and trumped down the stairs to take a shower. His own bathtub had clogged up two days back and John didn't bother calling the plumber on it - for some reason he seemed unperturbed in using Sherlock's bathroom.

After the shower, John disappeared upstairs again and came back down thirteen minutes later, fully clothed. That was when a peculiar scent overwhelmed Sherlock's senses. A smell of almonds and grapes, slight alcohol, flowers...? It was not _not_ appealing, per say, it just was -

Fake.

Sherlock lowered his violin, spun around on his heel and looked at John shrewdly. The man was wearing a red and grey jumper over his usual trousers. He stopped on his way to the kitchen and raised an eyebrow at Sherlock. "Staring."

"John," said Sherlock in a forcibly conversational tone, "Are you wearing deodorant?"

John looked confused. "I always wear deodorant, what do you mean?"

"New deo," Sherlock snapped, as if that should have been obvious.

John scratched the back of his head, seemingly embarrassed (by what? Sherlock wondered). Losing patience, Sherlock approached John, violin and bow still in hand, and stuck his nose against John's clean-shaven chin.

"Sherlock, what - ?"

Sherlock took a whiff. Once again, that smell overwhelmed his senses, driving him up the wall. John took a step back, trying to look affronted, clenching his fists to stop his hands from shaking at the close proximity. "Sherlock, what the hell? Did you just... Did you smell me?"

Sherlock walked back to his position in front of the wall of murder and mystery, unfazed, and hoisted his violin against his collar bone once again. Rendered immobile by his roommate's peculiar behaviour, John stared at the detective who seemed deep in thought, his eyebrows furrowed, lips pulled into a thin line. Just as John was going to file the incident under Things Sherlock Does When Functioning On Little To No Sleep, and proceed to the kitchen to make them their customary morning tea, John heard Sherlock mutter something under his breath.

"Sorry, did you say somethi - "

Louder, this time: "I said, John, don't ever wear this brand of body spray again, it doesn't suit you. Now, my phone's on the table, send a text to Lestrade - "

"Wait a minute," John cut in, fuming. "Are you telling me what I can and can not wear?"

"Of course not, John, if I did do that you'd be wearing freshly pressed shirts instead of those hideously outdated jumpers."

John looked down at his jumper, momentarily distracted, struggling to find why the item of clothing bugged Sherlock so much, and then reminded himself that he was angry with the man. "If you draw the line there, then you don't get to comment on the bloody sprays I decide to put on _my_ bloody body."

"But it doesn't suit you!" Sherlock whined like a little child. Colour filled his cheeks at the immature outbreak and he was glad he wasn't facing John at that moment. "Besides," he said, struggling to gain composure and just a little self-respect, "It integers with my brain, I can't concentrate when - "

A sound of shuffling behind him, and then John, stomping down the stairs, but why - ? "John? John, where are you going?"

"To buy - " _stomp_ " - more - " _stomp_ " - DEODORANTS!"

Then the front door slammed. The noise bounced off the walls, followed by a resonating silence Sherlock wasn't familiar with. He pursed his lips, confused. No, John couldn't have walked out on him, after a fight about _deodorants_, of all the things to fight about in the world! That just didn't make sense, he had to be in here somewhere.

"Right," said Sherlock to an empty flat, "Type this text to Lestrade, John, use my phone. It's on the table. Or in the oven, I can't remember. Type this, are you listening, John?"

- . -

True to his word, John returned at lunchtime with several glossy packets. As he passed Sherlock, he looked at the detective with barely disguised defiance.

"That was unnecessary, John," Sherlock muttered stiffly, sitting on the couch with his fingers on either side of his temples. Wordlessly, John stamped up the stairs.

- . -

Today the situation was worsened by the fact that John was wearing a clover-scented deodorant. Clover - one of the few turn-ons Sherlock allowed himself to have. This time the fragrance really was driving him up the wall, and still it smelt fake.

"You haven't _always_ worn artificial body odours, John," thinks Sherlock out loud over lunch.

John looks at him, mildly amused that the darned deodorants are still in his mind. "No, I haven't, and I supposed it was time to change that."

"Whatever for?" asks Sherlock incredulously. "It's not like you've got anyone to _impress_."

"Oh, right," says John sarcastically, biting salad off his fork. "Yeah, almost forgot that we're not dating. Oops, my mistake."

Sherlock rolled his eyes, leaning back in his chair and looking around the restaurant, studying the people settled at tables around them; one banker, dining with his mistress while texting his wife, fingers stained yellow with nicotine, definitely suffering from a heart disease - received a death sentence today, presumably, from the doctor's, and decided it was time to break it off with his mistress...

Sherlock returned his eyes back to John. "You're being unreasonably mouthy, what's gotten into you?"

"Nothing has _gotten into me_, Sherlock, you're just bugging me with this whole business with the deodorants. What's gotten into _you?_" A corner of John's lips pulled down - something was definitely wrong, Sherlock deduced. "And why aren't you eating anything?" questioned John further.

"I'm not a suspect John, I don't have to answer all of your questions."

"Yeah, but I've got to answer yours?" John licked his lower lip, his eyes fixed on Sherlock's. They were caught up in an involuntary staring match, and instead of reminding himself repeatedly not to blink, Sherlock thought once again of the clover scent wafting across the table. The blood under his skin turned warm without his consent, and he could feel his face clouding over, his eyes turning darker...

He blinked, shut his eyes, trying to hide his expression from John.

John blinked. In surprise, this time, for he had never won a staring match against Sherlock. Perhaps this one didn't count as one, he decided, something was definitely on Sherlock's mind. "Is everything alright?" he chose to ask, his voice this time marginally softer and less demanding.

"Yeah, it's all good." Sherlock opened his eyes, but instead of looking at John, looked at John's lunch. "You done?"

"U-um, yeah, I'm done." He really wasn't, but he threw his napkin into the plate anyway. He figured Sherlock eventually tired of watching John eat, seeing as the man never ate anything himself. John still didn't know why Sherlock insisted on having lunch with him today.

John didn't know a lot of things about Sherlock these days.

- . -

Sherlock refused to look at John the entire way back to Baker Street. John attempted to catch the former's eye once or twice, in the reflecting of the taxi's window, in the rearview mirror, but Sherlock looked stubbornly away. When they reached home - _home_, how peculiar that John thought of it as home - Sherlock stepped out of the cab wordlessly, turning the collar of his fancy coat up, and stepping into 221 B. Sighing, John paid the cabbie and watched as the vehicle rumbled down the street, turning at the end and disappearing. Then he walked into the house and up the stairs, stopping on the first landing to check up on Sherlock.

He was nowhere to be seen. At first, John thought of letting it go, tried reminding himself that this was _Sherlock,_ he'd play some Vivaldi and find himself a messy murder to solve and soon enough he'd be back to normal, but something made John walk up to his flatmate's bedroom door and tap it with his knuckled. "Sherlock?" he called, his voice slightly wavering. "You there?"

"Busy!" the man called back. John rolled his eyes.

"Tell me if you head out, a'ight?"

No reply.

"Sherlock, are you sure everything's - "

"Go away, John!"

Like a stubborn teenager, John thought to himself, and chuckled out loud. The door was flung open, and there stood Sherlock, now in sweats and a very loose t-shirt, the three buttons down his chest undone. _Hot._ The thought raced through John's head before he could stop himself.

"What did you find funny?" asked Sherlock.

John almost didn't register the question, their faces were close - too close, he'd reckon, and he could see right into Sherlock's eyes, all of his curls for _once_ out of the way.

The he regained his composure and refused to step back - too stubborn to admit with his actions that he was intimidated by the other man. "Nothing," said John, remarkably without stuttering. He looked down at Sherlock's outfit pointedly, and then back at his face - did it just get closer? "Napping?"

"Thinking."

"Would you care for a spot of - "

"We just had _lunch_, John."

"Nope. Correction: _I_ just had lunch. You didn't. Then we got into an argument about my - " _fucking_ " - deodorant and now, this." John's mouth flew shut. He rolled his eyes without rolling his eyes. Sherlock was studying him with a hooded expression, and then in a flash of deja vu he stuck his nose against John's cheek and breathed in.

"What the hell?" exclaimed John, stepping away, nearly falling backwards. He threw his arms up in exasperation. "Okay, I'm gone. Have fun _thinking_, Sherlock."

- . -

John's words, no, his _voice _remains in Sherlock's head for the rest of the day. It keeps him up for most of the night. _Thinking._ He gets up at four hours after midnight, pads around his room in his socks, around the kitchen, circling the dining table, down the stairs to check if Mrs Hudson is in (pointless - he heard her return home two hours prior) and then, finally, upstairs to John.

He knocks first, of course, but doesn't give a further moment's notice before barging in. "John, wake up."

And John is up, turned over in bed, a gun in his hand with the nozzle pointing directly at Sherlock.

Sherlock, who huffs and turns on the light, says, "Took you longer than it should have, you're letting your guard down."

John squints in the sudden bright light, then realizes it's Sherlock and puts his fun beside his pillow. "What do you want, Sherlock?" he mumbles, head falling back onto his pillow.

"We need to talk." Sherlock stands his ground, not moving a muscle. "I've been thinking."

"Oh, that's brilliant." John's voice is enveloped in sleep, which irritates Sherlock. "So we figured out how to think, have we?"

"John, if you cut the snark and actually took me _seriously_ for once - "

"But I'm the only one who takes you seriously, Sherlock," says John simply, casually, in an I'm just putting it out there tone, here you go, Sherlock. The truth. I'm the only one who listens.

"Oh, shut up," Sherlock waves it off, but it settles into a crook in his brain and refuses to leave. Sherlock tilts his head to the side. "Lestrade takes me seriously."

"No, Lestrade takes all the credit."

"Molly - "

"Just entertains you because she's got a crush on you."

"Wha - Anderson. Anderson takes me seriously." Sherlock actually looks _upset_ now.

"He'd like to. He'd also like to take you to a graveyard and bury you alive."

"Well, well then." Sherlock finds it difficult to swallow, because his throat is dry. "That's an unexpected revelation, all those people not - oh, how they say it? Whatever. I wanted to talk to you about something else."

Losing interest in the conversation, John turns over and covers his head with his sheet. "Can't it wait till morning, Sherlock?"

"It _is_ morning. And I wanted to talk to you, about the deodorant, and my behaviour."

"Oh, I hardly think this is the time to discuss important matters like those," shoots back John sarcastically.

Now Sherlock is consumed with anger. Not anger, but irritation. Confusion. Exasperation - all those emotions he once caused John to sit through, he flits through them now like a feather in the wind. Hurt. Hurt. Hurt.

_Oh._

"Listen." Sherlock stomps to the bed, climbs onto it - _stands _on it, with all ten of his toes - and reaches down, pulling the sheets away from John's body. "Listen to me."

John looks up, and the emotion in his eyes is clearer than the ones in Sherlock's. Anger. "Go awa - "

"Not going away. You're listening to me, I've been _thinking_."

Ah, realizes John, a revelation of sorts, then. Who killed whom in the latest case, and why Lestrade got it wrong _again._ Stupid humans in their silly little stupid brains, being so _stupid_ all the time. "Fine," John sits up. "Talk."

"About us." Sherlock sits down too, cross-legged on John's bed, close enough that their knees are almost touching. He bends forward, his fingers in a steeple under his chin.

"About us?"

"Us. You and me," Sherlock bites his lower lip. "_Us._"

Oh, dear God. "No," John's cheeks bloom with colour. "No, I am not having this conversation."

"I want to sleep with you."

_"What?"_

"Right here, just for tonight, for the next four hours." At John's panicked expression, he says, impatiently, "Just _sleep,_ John. Nothing more."

"Right, of course." John squints. "No."

"Why not?"

"Because that would be so, unplatonic."

"Which is not a word."

"Which is what we would be, Sherlock, if I gave in."

"Would it be that bad, to be unplatonic?"

"I though it wasn't a wo - "

"_Shut up, _John." Sherlock shuts his eyes, sucks in a breath, and all he can smell is clover. Once again, his blood flows warm and thick, his heartbeat picking up.

Then John has his own revelation. "Oh, for fuck's sake, Sherlock. Is this about the deodorant?"

"Clover," Sherlock mumbles, his eyes still closed.

"Clover?"

"It's a... um, a personal..."

"Turn on." John laughs hollowly. "Of course. Clover turns Sherlock Holmes on."

"Nobody needs to know."

"I'm not going to _tell_ anybody, Sherlock."

The detective's eyes open slowly, and he studies John, John's eyes, his chin, the wrinkles by his lips, his _lips..._

"Oh, alright then." John flops back down on the bed, scoots to the side and covers his body with only half of the blanket. "And switch off the light, will you?"

Sherlock smirks and does so, before crawling in. A foot away from John. Ten inches away from John. Two inches away from John. In the darkness, Sherlock's lips find the nape of John's neck and he places a small kiss there, before inhaling deeply -

"Stop _sniffing _me, Sherlock!"

Sherlock will definitely have to do something about the deodorants tomorrow.

_Finite._

* * *

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